Considerable attention has been devoted in recent years to recycling waste because of the increasing threat of environmental problems. Thus, for example, glasses and bottles, metal cans, packing materials, and many other materials are collected separately and sent away for recycling. Since legislation is also growing more strict, the pressure to recycle is increasing steadily. In addition, because take-back guarantees for used articles are either prescribed by law or are at least a good selling point, the trade and the manufacturers are coming under increased pressure to recycle their products.
This also applies to the textile industry. Frequently, used textiles are collected, e.g. at used clothing depots, and then broken up, particularly by tearing, then sent to reprocessing. With such a process, the material of which the used textiles are made is not critical. The problem of final disposal of the textile fabric or reprocessing into a completely new textile is however not solved by this.
Since a textile, particularly a jacket, is a composite article in whose manufacture lining, etc. and a number of accessories are used, which can consist of very different kinds of materials, it has thus far always been necessary to break down the textile into the individual components then send these components separately to reprocessing. This procedure is cumbersome and labor-intensive; also there is the risk that because of careless work or for some other reason, separation into the individual components is incomplete and the material to be reprocessed is nonuniform, which leads to corresponding difficulties. Frequently, the individual components used to make the jacket are so firmly attached to each other that clean separation of the components into the various materials is practically impossible.